&lt;prepares to hurl book at wall in truimph, remebers it is a library copy, and puts it in bag to gently hurl into book drop>

I was somewhat surprised to finish the book last night (I wasnt expecting so many pages of adverts in the back ) especially as it didnt seem to 'end'. Was it just me, or was it unclear when the events in the last chapter took place, and why exactly the twins mother died?

most of the characters in this book annoyed me for one reason or another, as did the backwards reading/writing and the Capitalisation of Significant Words - all in all I felt that Roy was Trying Too Hard to be Clever, and it just didnt work for me. :(

apologies to whoever suggested this, but I have never been so glad to finish a book, as it was having a negative effect on my other reading (felt guilty reading anything else, as I knew I should be getting on with this, but lack of engagement meant I didnt care what happened, and so didnt have a burning desire to pick up the book)

Hazel

__________________

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and doesn't stop until you get into the office

If Columbianus Rex is around, it'd be good to hear what they made of it, seeing as everyone else has given it an unqualified thumbs-down. I warned my RL bookgroup off it last night - rather prejudicially so, but I couldn't bear to think of any of them suffering as we did.

it was having a negative effect on my other reading (felt guilty reading anything else, as I knew I should be getting on with this, but lack of engagement meant I didnt care what happened, and so didnt have a burning desire to pick up the book)

Perfect summation of my feelings. I'm blasting through a crappy crime novel now (almost finished in just two sittings) just to try and forget. Dorian still hasn't turned up from QPD, but somehow I don't think that'll put the brakes on like TGoST did..

As a story I thought, for the most part, it was great. As a work of accomplished artistic writing I thought, for the most part, it was pants.

I found the backwards and forwards flow of past and present hard to follow, as the plot jumped all over the place in the first half - I normally like novels that play with time in this way but Roy doesn't seem to have mastered it. And what on earth were those terrible gratuitous sex scenes there for, messing up the ending? To throw me off balance? Why?

Though I enjoyed the plot itself, I won't be re-reading this. It just didn't meet the mark, and Roy seemed determined to show off at every opportunity.

Horrid isn't it; jarring, loosely held together, manipulative. The small section on casual child abuse was handled with a particular eye to palming an evil act off as a normality, therefore highlighting it's filthiness. This, in my opinion, smacks less of social awareness, and rather more of shock factor lazy art.

Maybe it could have worked if it wasn't all coupled with her appalingly florid style.
As for why it won the Booker, well just look at it's pedigree: style over substance, young attractive indian author (i can see the judges patting themselves on the back as they imagined deigning to invite her to a dinner party in Islington so they could marvel at her), and hey, just look at that cover man!

With regards to your comment that it was 'loosely held together', I'm guessing you're referring to both the past/present time thing and the several fashionable themes that were running about all over the place in a big old scribble (at this point I am imagining a drawing of Mr Messy).

I abandoned The God of Small Things after 50 pages on the principle that it was everything that gives literary fiction a bad name. Arundhati Roy, first-time novelist, was in desperate need of a patient and experienced editor, but had her book thrust into the world in such a rough state (and Col's comments above really nail most of what's wrong with it) that it's almost unreadable.

And then, bizarrely, she won the most prestigious prize in British and Commonwealth fiction.